Young House Love

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Painting Our Bedroom A Rich Blue Paint Color

Nope, we’re not cooking in the bedroom, that’s the name of our new paint color…

Painting7

You’ve actually seen it already in this post about the color palette that we’re leaning towards for this house and we’re so dang happy with it. It was between Sparrow, Knoxville Gray, Sea Star, and Black Pepper for our master, and when we held up the swatches it took the lead for having depth along with a cool faded feeling. It feels fresh, yet also could be one of those “historical colors” which we think is the sweet spot for our house.

New House Paint Colors

Since it’s a large room full of light furnishings and crisp white trim and doors, we thought it could handle something deeper than the soft blues, grays, tans, and browns in our palette above – especially since we love enveloping colors in the bedroom. Oh but of course we’re just getting started in here so ignore things like:

  • the missing window treatments
  • the art-less walls
  • the bare ceiling (paint or even painted textured wallpaper like this might be fun eventually)
  • the lack of a ceiling fixture (can’t wait to add one)
  • the furniture placement (it’s just plopped down where it’s been since we moved, except for our new dresser – although that’s not in it’s final resting place either)
  • those benches at the foot of the bed (we’d love to get a single bench, hopefully from a secondhand shop that we can reupholster)
  • the two off centered windows on the wall to the right of the bed (more on the plan for those in a minute)

Painting6

Black Pepper is definitely not as dark as a black tone would be, and actually has a lot of navy undertones but almost looks flatter and more faded. It feels really really sophisticated in person. Might be our favorite dark color to date. Here it is with a bunch of other swatches since that seems to help show undertones and values better online (somehow comparing it to nearby colors gives it context instead of just seeing that color in a vacuum).

Black Pepper Gradient

To prep the room, we just pushed everything into the center of the room and covered it with a protective drop cloth. We have been painting with hardwood floors for ages, but if you’re worried about dripping on those you can cover those as well. We’ve found that when we wipe up a rogue drip right away it comes right up, and even if we miss it and it dries we can “pop” it up with our nail, so that helps.

Painting2

After prepping, we did one coat of tinted primer first, just to help us with coverage, cover those lines that were on the walls from spraying the doors before we installed our floors, and to make sure the color would look as true and rich as possible. We went for a no-VOC primer called Kilz Premium from Home Depot (they tinted it for us knowing we’d be painting with a dark blue-gray color). The primer definitely wasn’t as sophisticated looking in person as this photo (it looks less chalky and little-boy-room-ish here) but in person we couldn’t wait to get some paint over that primer.

Painting3

Here’s the difference in the tinted primer and the real color going on:

Painting5

We only needed one coat of the Black Pepper (we used no-VOC Natura paint by Benjamin Moore) for full coverage, which is pretty rare for us since we usually need at least two but I’m sure the primer made the difference. Although the three twelve-paned glass windows in here took five coats applied by hand (two of primer and three of paint) along with a razor-scraping session at the end to clean them up, so this bedroom is a prime case of you win some, you lose some.

We went with an eggshell sheen which is nice for a deep color. It’s pretty matte looking which I think adds to the chic-ness of it. I like that it’s bold and that it’s a color, but not anything too crazy. It falls back and lets the headboard and the rugs and the pillows do their thing without feeling too meek or invisible. It sort of straddles the line between “dark neutral” and “still makes a statement” if that makes sense.

Painting6

As for the plans in here other than dealing with the bare windows and artless walls and replacing those benches next to the bed… did somebody say built-ins? We’d love to create an entire wall of built-ins behind the bed like this (complete with a window seat like this for the window on that wall). Then we’ll move our new dresser to the wall opposite the bed so I can wake up everyday and gaze at it. We’ll also gain tons of storage and display space and the bed would have that cozy tucked-in feeling of sleeping in a nook (we loved that about our first house’s bedroom).

We came to that solution when we were thinking about how it’s a bummer that those two windows on the back wall aren’t centered – but we realized that if we added some built-ins along the wall with the bed on it, they suddenly would be centered and the whole room would have a lot more function and balance.

Painting9

So that’s on the agenda down the line in here. In the meantime we’re just enjoying the moodier wall color and how it makes all of the crown and trim pop. It’s amazing how much of a difference some fresh flooring and paint can make. Even though we still have a big ol’ to-do list in here…

Before Bedroom Carpet

Anyone else making friends with a new paint color?

More Of Our Favorite Paint Colors

If you’re having trouble picking the right color to paint your room, check out these detailed deep-dive posts about our favorite paints:

Comments

  1. Emily says

    I am loving the color you chose. just wondering, is there a reason you have chosen Benjamin Moore Natura to paint with? I’ve been doing some reading on the best no/low VOC paints and I keep seeing Behr on the top. And given that BM is so much more expensive, I just wondered if there was something you valued about that product that some other brand might not have. Check out this link to and Apartment Therapy article. http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/the-best-interior-paints-are-l-108775

    Granted, it’s written in 2010, and I’m sure there have been new developments since then.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Yes, there have been a bunch of new developments since then, but the colorants that they add to the Behr base paint have VOCs, while the colorants they add to Natura paint by BM are no-VOC, so it’s purer. We also have just had luck with BM paints being good for coverage and not runny or thin, so once we started using them more regularly we got hooked.

      xo
      s

    • Cait says

      BM is also a sponsorof yours, right? Does that factor in? I like that color, definitely one to consider in the future!

    • YoungHouseLove says

      They’re not sponsors of ours, but we do pick a color collection for them at the beginning of each year as a side gig. However, we pay for all of our materials/projects/paint with our own money and never promise them that we’ll exclusively use their paint or anything (we’ve also used paints by other companies, it just depends on the project). We’ve preferred BM paint since well before they ever approached us to team up, so it’s more like our readers encouraged us to try it out, we tried it and loved it, and then BM asked us to do a color collection with them – which was awesome/crazy since we’re such fans!

      xo
      s

  2. Pamela @ Little Red House says

    It looks good! I like the idea of the built-ins and how it will make the room look more even. The off-center windows would throw me off!
    As for new favorite paint colors – I just painted our bedroom walls Behr’s Ionic Sky (a light blue) and I love it. I love it so much I’m also going to pain my office that same color. Yesterday I purchased Behr Sailboat (a cobalt blue) and I might love it more than Ionic Sky.

    Reply

  3. Lesley says

    Love that you are adding some spice to the bedroom… get it?

    I try my hardest not to be impacted by paint names, but I can’t help it. I would never be able to walk into a kitchen with a paint named ‘Muddy River’ or something weird that would make me think it’s dirty all the time. I have had a few stretches but somehow I make the colour name work for the use, or keep looking.

    Reply

  5. meggan colombo says

    it is funny you mentioned the off center windows. I know window coverings can really help hide that if you make them wider than the window and center them. but then again, i have a feeling you already have that idea up your sleeve ;)

    Reply

  7. BamaCarol says

    I expected to see Burger peeking from among the pillows. Does he still sleep in on the bed or does he stay downstairs with you during the day now? Our cat used to stay close to us but now he finds the quietest hidey hole so he can nap all day long.

    Reply

  9. Meredith Jones says

    I’m lovin this color! It’s similar to our bedroom color, yours might be a little more blue. I really love having a darker color in the bedroom. It makes it feel so cozy!

    Reply

  10. Suzy from CA says

    My comment is off the paint-color focus of your post, but I wanted to suggest that as you plan the dimension of the window seat, you may want to check places like Crate & Barrel and Ballard Designs that carry lots of ready-made cushions and replacement cushions for outdoor furniture. When I built my 75″ long window seat (sorry, no pictures yet!) I found that buying an off-the-shelf cushion instead of ordering custom-made saved me several hundred dollars. The cushion I got was about 2″ shorter than my bench, but with a throw pillow at the end you don’t even see the gap. And I had my choice of several different corner/edge styles (box or corded, etc), and tons of solids, patterns, and prints in either indoor or outdoor fabric. (I chose an outdoor fabric since my window gets a lot of sun).

    Reply

  13. Mary says

    I just finished a big repainting project – I just decided two weeks ago that my entire house (excluding bedrooms and bathrooms) needed a new color. It’s an open floor plan so each room kinda runs into the next. About 2,000 sq ft of painting later – I’m done :) Oh, and I’m 8 mos preggo. Crazy nesting, much?

    Reply

  17. Kathy F. says

    I painted all the dining and living area walls in my house Benjamin Moore’s Edgecomb Gray. It is FABULOUS.
    Then I painted my kitchen Benjamin Moore’s Seacliff Heights – a kind of slightly grayed-out blue with a hint of green. My kitchen looks so good!
    Your blog has been an inspiration to me. Especially that Edgecomb Gray. :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Christine! We use a Nikon D3200 and we shoot in A mode. We love it, although we’re hardly pro photographers. Still have a lot to learn, but we’re having fun with it!

      xo
      s

  19. Michelle says

    That paint color has got it going on!! Love it:)

    Here’s an unrelated paint question –I got all giddy when I saw the bronze animal (pig?, rhino?) on your night stand..but he got cut off in all the pictures on this post…can you share where you got him?

    I’m inclined to guess it’s from Target’s Threshold line because I got a bronzy/gold rhino from there earlier this year at a very affordable $10, I believe (!)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Michelle! He’s from HomeGoods a few years ago (used to live on the sink in our last house’s bedroom- for some reason he’s always in the room with us. Haha!).

      xo
      s

  20. Erin says

    it looks kinda like the blue that you just got rid of. Which i’m sure it totally isnt, but it’s lookin’ that way on my internets.

    Reply

  22. Alexis says

    Looking great – love the paint colour and new nightstand. I also still love the headboard fabric. Do you think about doing anything to the bed legs – beefing them up or darkening them?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We’ve chatted about cutting them down a bit and using a bed skirt to make the bed look more traditional. Maybe once we have the built-ins going in we’ll decide how to make the bed look more built in or something.

      xo
      s

  23. Sara says

    Wow…seriously awesome color choice!!! It’s amazing how much bigger the room looks in the “after” pix even though the walls are darker. Thanks for the inspiration! :)

    Reply

  24. Cassie says

    Why, yes, I did paint recently. Our bathroom is a nice and bright blue now… and so was my hair all day at work!! :(

    I tried to pick it out by myself, but apparently it was too hard to see it all. Thankfully my husband got the rest of it for me this afternoon.

    I learned my lesson. Paint behind the toilet before you paint the walls around the toilet :D

    Reply

  25. Abigayle says

    I finally picked the first color for our new home yesterday (after consulting with my bff and hubby of course). We’re going with a darker color in our master as well! I wanted navy, and after finding as many dark blue colors as I could at b-moore and h-depot, and after narrowing it down from over 20 options, we finally made our choice: postal blue by pratt and lambert. I’m pretty excited to get it up on all the walls soon and then keep going with the decorating in that room!

    Reply

  26. jen says

    Unrelated question, but I am thinking of giving painted curtains a try. How much fabric medium did you mix with paint when you made those ones for the book?

    Reply

  27. tara dawes says

    Would love to make friends with a new paint color and really like the color that you choose. I have yet to really paint much of anything in my house though because the wall texture is HORRIBLE and I do mean horrible. I’ve had two relatives (who have a lot of experience with redoing homes) look at it and said that it looks like the guy who originally reno’d our house basically sprayed the paint on the walls like you would before taking a scrapper to it to texture it, only he never took the scrapper to it – so we just have these huge bumps/clumps on our walls.

    Anyone ever had any experience with this and especially how to remove it? I’d love to smooth the walls in our bedroom and paint them, but I’m honestly not sure how to do it :/

    Reply

    • tara dawes says

      Yeah my aunt told me to just live with it because it would be a pain in the butt to deal with but didn’t go any further than that :P

      We have lots of drywall that is cracked/sagging/etc because the guy didn’t know what he was doing. Eventually we will probably just have to replace all the drywall (grumble grumble) and then I can have non-splattered walls I guess, it’s just frustrating to live with in the meantime. I want pretty wall colors and trim and chair rails – and everything is soooooo beige and bumpy.

  28. kate says

    Love it! I wanted to do a similar mid-tone grey in our master, but the hubs wasn’t convinced (that said, I still am loving the softer grey we picked in the end!)

    Reply

  29. Ellis says

    Love the color and the built ins are a good idea.
    Will that nightstand/dresser be wide enough to hide the cable wire John pulled through? It makes me wish y’all got the 6 drawer version– I think it’d play more evenly opposite such big built ins.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We have a few things to go on that side of the room once we add built ins on the bed side (a chair, our dresser, a leaning mirror, etc) so we’re hoping those will feel balanced and hide all of the wall warts :)

      xo
      s

  30. K says

    Help! You have such a great eye for color! Any great color suggestions for a family room accent wall (that has an oak fireplace on the wall) that will look great with the tan walls with oak trim on either side of it? I’m terrible at choosing colors! Currently it’s red and it’s time to update! Thanks!!

    Reply

  31. Haley says

    I love that color with the white trim! In fact, we just bought a ton and a half of paint for our new house and one color looks exactly like that, and it’s called peppercorn (Sherwin Williams color match). Was there a paint-tinting convention and a huge argument broke out over the correct color of pepper? I’m pretty sure that’s what broke the friendship of Sherwin and Benjamin and created a lifelong rivalry.

    Reply

  32. Julie M. says

    It is funny how you’ve taken so much of that slate blue off the baseboard and entryway, but it’s made its way back in. This is really a beautiful shade though and much more current.

    Reply

  33. Annie N says

    Hey guys, love the color so moody and soothing at the same time!

    Was hoping to get some advice from you guys, my husband and I our building a new/custom home and we are at the stage of picking colors. I am super excited about the kitchen, we are doing two tone cabinets and two different contrasting colored quartz, but when it comes to wall/door trim I am stuck, I have always wanted crisp white trim, but sadly out current house has oak trim and I was to impatient to paint it myself, when given options this time around I thought white trim was a no brainier but then we found out they also have a cream/tan painted trim option, we like the color a lot and it seems less maintence than white, but still love the crispness of white and how it makes paint pop. As you guys are PRO white trim with all your houses, I thought I’d ask your honest opinion as far as care, maintence, durability. We don’t have any little ones yet, but hope for soon down the road (reason for new house) and we have a 150lb Great Dane!

    Love you blog by the way, I start each day with my YHL fix!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think it sounds like you have your heart set on white trim and settling for something else might make you regret it later. White is really not much maintenance at all for us (we touch up trim once before we move out, but other than that we never have to repaint while living there or anything). Really we just dust windowsills and baseboards and use a Magic Eraser on a scuff if it happens. Hope it helps!

      xo
      s

    • Lisa E says

      It definitely depends on those living there! Our white baseboards in our last house were all beat up. Could have attributed to a teenage boy and his friends. Some people are just more careful than others. :(

  34. Jenny says

    I love all the names of your paints listed. I feel like someone could write an epic tale only using the names of your paint picks,… ‘As the snowy owls flew through the pismo dunes….’ You get the point ;)

    Reply

  36. erin moria says

    Hi, Sherry. I would like some decor advice. My basement walls were recently painted dark navy and I was thinking of doing an entire wall of frames in gold with ivory mats. I’ve actually always been a huge fan of your white frames and mats in your brightly lit hall way. I guess I’ve had a change of heart since I love our moody wall color down stairs and think the white frames would be of too high a contrast (do you think so?). I think gold accessories would be a match made in heaven for your new bedroom wall color. Can you let me know what you think about placing white frames and white mats on top of a dark wall color?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think white frames with white mats would be gorgeous on a dark wall color, and gold frames with ivory mats sound amazing too! Both seem like they would work really nicely so it’s just whichever one you’re drawn to most. Good luck!

      xo
      s

  37. Sherri Mc says

    I’m totally diggin the greenish Knoxville Gray, because d’uh, I live there! Really, I think it will be perfect for my Southern exposure LR/DR combo that currently sports a subdued Kelly-green number from PaintsAreUs. Thanks for the inspiration!

    Reply

  38. Michelle @ Life's Like That says

    I am obsessed with paint colours:) One of my newest favorites is definately Grey Wisp by Benjamin Moore. Another favorite neutral is Grant Beige also by Benjamin Moore.

    Love your Black Pepper choice. I just repainted our top floor of the house in varying shades of grey. Then came the new carpet in the hallway. Puke! The Pewter Grey by benjamin moore had to go and off the the paint store for Grant Beige. Good choice, i now feel good about my new carpet selection:)

    Reply

  39. Angela, Blue i Style says

    I LOVE, LOVE the color choice and I totally agree that the crisp white trim and doors and light furnishings can make a dark color really sing in a room! We did our guest room in a dark grey (darker than Black Pepper) but the room is filled with all white furnishings and bedding inspired by a hotel we stayed at in Greece on our honeymoon. I think the dark grey gives it both a cozy and sophisticated feel. Can’t wait to see how the rest of your room comes together!

    Reply

  40. Carolyn says

    Wow, it looks great. I love the wall colour. Seriously, stick a plant in there, put a picture on the wall and call it good! ;-)

    Reply

  41. Steph @ SeeStephRun.com says

    How have I never noticed that you have the West Elm night stand that I have been lusting after for YEARS. Literally, years. This looks gorgeous! We are in the midst of selling our home and finding a new one and you guys are amazing inspiration!

    Reply

  42. Tanya says

    Love the colour choice, it looks great in that room.

    I’m really excited about your future built ins project, I think they will look amazing in the space! My detail orientated mind wants more to consider though… What is the measurement from the wall to the window? Ie how deep would the built ins need to be to centre the windows?

    Tanya xo

    Ps Sorry if this posts twice, I was having issues!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We think a standard depth base cabinet will make things almost perfectly balanced and then if we worry that’s too deep for the uppers we can do a stacked open bookcase type design (like in the inspiration rooms that we linked to) so that the top of the room isn’t too heavy looking.

      xo
      s

  44. Sue Ann says

    I fell in love with Colorado Grey when you did a post about it. I’ve never used that dark a color in a bathroom, but I have to tell you I LOVE IT! It’s so soothing and modern looking. Thank you for turning me onto a whole new palette.

    Reply

  45. Jennifer Holland says

    I just painted our piano room a bold peacock blue called Jade Garden. Its fabulous! And as an added bonus, all of my favorite stores are featuring this color for the season! Ka-Ching! Don’t you just love when that happens?!?!

    Reply

  47. Manda Wolf says

    Wow! Huge difference already! I love that paint color. We are playing around with greys in our master bedroom as well. Right now it is two tones with a dark rich purple (that I love) and a light purple which I was never really fond of but the hubby liked it. We have lived with it for a little over a year so I think now is a great time for a change *smiles*.

    Reply

  48. yailen says

    I love your blog..it inspires me to make changes around my house. Can you please tell me your choice of white for trim? Thank you.

    Reply

  49. Naomi says

    Love how the room is coming along!

    Do you have any idea what color they tinted the primer? I’m looking for a blue/very for my little boy’s room :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      They just looked up the formula for the paint we were using and tinted it in that range (it came out lighter but did the trick for a base coat). So sorry I don’t have a color name or formula for that tinted primer though.

      xo
      s

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